In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark

In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark

The book I have just read, “In the Footsteps of Lewis and Clark”, is mainly about a man named Richard, his wife Arlette, and his two children Michele, 6, and Daniel, 4, who follow in almost the exact footsteps of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. While the book talks about the family’s expedition it also, mainly, tells about the Lewis and Clark expedition and the history of it.

Meriwether Lewis was born August 18th, 1774 near Charlottesville, Virginia. William Clark was born August 1st, 1770 in Virginia as well. Some people believe that the boys may have played together as children, but this is only a myth. When their lives did join, their names became inseparable as partners of discovery.

When Lewis joined the Militia in 1794, he met Clark. In sharing the experiences of the Northwest Campaign against the British and the Indians, Lewis and Clark became fast friends. When Lewis was in Philadelphia he received a letter from President Jefferson with detailed instructions for the expedition to explore the western terrain. Clark would be assisting him.

Richard and his wife prepare for their expedition in Philadelphia, as Lewis did, and they visited the library of the American Philosophical Society. The librarian suggested that if they wanted to follow in the exact footsteps of Lewis and Clark they should use a classic eight volume edition of the Lewis and Clark journals. Richard took many notes of the Lewis and Clark expedition for their journey.

Lewis and Clark started on August 31, 1803 and floated down the Ohio River to set out for St. Louis where they trained a group of men for the upcoming task. When they started their tour in May 1804, they took a keelboat, two pirogue boats and 29 men to start the exploration of the west. One of those men was Touissant Charbonneau, a man who took one of his Indian wives, Sacagawea, with him. It is said that she was one of the most important reasons the expedition survived. Most of the Indian tribes did not think this a military expedition because a woman and her child, Pompy, who she gave birth to on February 11, 1804, accompanied the group. She knew many secrets of the Indian culture, had knowledge about their medicine and knew local plants and animals foreign to the Easterners.

While traveling, the captains and four other men kept diaries where they described nature, the weather, the atmosphere on the boat or the results of their hunting. On their hunting tours, many interesting animals were seen, for example the channel catfish, the cutthroat trout, the prairie rattler and more. Some of them were given names by the expedition itself: The group killed many animals while traveling, which was easy because the animals had little fear of humans. Clark was the first man to kill a prairie wolf and a pronghorn, but Lewis was the first man to kill a grizzly bear.

On August 3rd, 1804 the captains meet a group of Oto and Missouri Indians. As a sign of friendship they handed out peace medals, with Jefferson on one side and two clasping hands on the other, 15 star flags, flour, roasted meat, pork and more. The meeting ceremony with Indian tribes became a ritual, where the captains explained to the Indian chiefs that they now belonged to the USA, and that they would be taken care of by the great father, Thomas Jefferson. After handing over the presents, Lewis and Clark’s men performed a parade by marching in uniforms and shooting their guns.

Lewis, Clark and their men met about 50 tribes during those years and discovered that the Indians had very different ways of living, different appearances and customs. The Tenton Sioux slept in tepees, hunted buffalo and guarded their territory in a very aggressive way. The Mandans lived in earth lodges and farmed corn. Some tribes have never even seen any whites or blacks before. They met the Mandans in the winter of 1804 to 1805, and Lewis, Clark, and their men decided to spend the cold season in the village of the Mandan Natives, a stockade in North Dakota. The ones who were responsible for keeping track of the diaries used the break to update journals, maps and to categorize what they have found so far.

When spring came, the explorers continued their journey to the mouth of Yellowstone River, to the Rocky Mountains and eventually arrived at the Three Forks of Missouri River, naming its three branches Jefferson, Madison and Gallatin in order to honor the administration. In their journey they followed the Jefferson, and in July of 1805 the Indian woman Sacagawea recognized the territory of her origins, the Beaver's Head Shoshone country. That was the moment the Indian woman proved again her value as a guide and interpreter for the men. In August